What exactly does “supporting the idea of a Green New Deal” even mean? It sounds like just a bunch of nothing to me.
Your question is answered in the first three paragraphs of my citation. I used the particular wording (“the idea of”) because poll respondents last December were given a brief but accurate description of the GND rather than given the completed resolution.
Xenophon, I don’t believe “reactionary” means what you think it means.
If you’re talking about a three-sigma high IQ society group, then yes. 
(Please don’t doxx me.) Cool to know there are others from our group here! Feel free to PM me if you want to tell me who you are; or remain asymmetrically mysterious if you prefer. 
Word. One of my friends is a hardcore Bernie supporter. Yet he and I have argued over the retirement age for years. I think it would make sense to move it up a bit, maybe to the nice round number of 70. He has bitterly opposed this, but now he strongly supports the idea of an octogenarian president. 
Trump didn’t win the GOP nomination because of the “American voter”. He won it by winning a plurality (not majority) of support among wingnut GOP primary voters. Saying that provides a blueprint for Democratics is like a new Whole Foods CEO coming in and saying “Dollar General is doing well, so we’ll make WF just like them.” You’re not going to get the Dollar General customers, and you’ll just alienate your own.
And the House vote last fall proves that Trump is *not *“heading the party of the majority”!
I wasn’t saying that (although I’d point out that the “horses” I’m backing are Beto, Booker, and Inslee in that order, and I haven’t seen a sign that they are particularly guilty of this). I just wanted to clarify, because reading “I agree with you: [bunch of stuff I strongly disagree with]” made me eager to clarify, as I don’t want to be misrepresented. That’s it.
I agree with your analysis, although not your preference. I think this is absolutely the best chance the far left will likely have in our lifetimes to get one of theirs in the White House. If they can get Warren or Sanders through the primaries, either should be a favorite against Trump. So for their camp, it’s an incredibly tantalizing opportunity. But I still see it as riskier than going with a more mainstream candidate, plus I don’t think either of them would be as good a president as one of the mainstream candidates I prefer. (Buck Godot and kaylasdad also make some excellent points about the longer term impact.) And as unlike you I am a proud Democrat, it would especially irk me to see Bernie get the nomination, as he has only tepidly joined the party to the degree he has to, to exploit DNC resources. He’s a parasite, IOW.
But I’d still vote for him against Trump, obviously, which again underlines what an opportunity it is for the far left. An opportunity I will work assiduously during primary season to deny them!
Radical incrementalism, then. That is my latest political position and its a dandy, so long as I don’t have to explain how its different from plain old liberalism.
Radical incrementalism would, in all seriousness*, involve conducting (or promoting) radical changes in a planned and staged manner over a budgeted time frame. I’m fine with that, luc’.
And I’m using “reactionary” above in it’s classic sense, as politically resistant to real or perceived sudden changes. Usually, reactionaries are resisting political or social change. I need us to be reactive to climate change and its attendant problems.
*[sub]'Cause that’s how I roll.[/sub]
Well and good but my basic point still stands: let the voters decide who they want their candidate to be. If that candidate is outspoken on all those issues, cool. If you believe candidates should get that message out there, even better - they’re already doing that. If they win the nomination, then that’s what the Dems, as a general body, want. If the eventual candidate is shy on those issues, well that’s what the voters want in that case.
I’m for democracy. If my preferred candidates or issues aren’t a focus, well that’s a shame and I’ll do my part in supporting them the next time, not demand the majority bend to my will or emulate some of the more asinine online behavior we’ve all seen.
They were given a very incomplete (therefore inaccurate) description of the GND. I mean, I’m honestly surprised a higher percentage of the voters in the poll in your cite didn’t respond positively to the main goals of the GND as presented. If they included any sort of realistic cost/consequence to achieving the GND, the poll results would look very different.
The poll basically presented a package that included a vague timeframe (and nothing more) for producing jobs, upgrading crumbling infrastructure, strengthening the economy, transitioning to clean, renewable energy and increasing energy efficiency in the process. Then they asked a bunch of people if they support these things. Who wouldn’t support these laudable goals? IMO, that poll doesn’t provide much in the way of useful information.
Yeah, my aforementioned Bernhead friend loves to cite polls that he argues prove there is a ginormous progressive majority in this country. They are always polls that present a rosy or vague view of the outcomes, without any obstacles, downsides, or potential complications. A good poll would ask the top strategists for each side to give a paragraph of their best argument pro or con, and ask people which one they agree with more. But that almost never happens.
The Democrats emulating Trump both wouldn’t work and wouldn’t be allowed. The rules are entirely different for the Republicans and everyone else; a Democrat who acted like Trump would be arrested, not elected.
There is also no large pool of hard left voters for such a Democrat to attract. People talking about things like the “Green New Deal” are engaging in a false equivalence; that’s* nowhere near* as far left as Trump is far right.
A Democratic mirror image of Trump would be someone who wanted to install a totalitarian Communist dictatorship, subjugate or expel all white people, reduce men to second class citizens, destroy the upper and middle class, outlaw religion, and so on. And there just aren’t enough people in the US who would support such a person to elect them.
Also, electing a monster to replace a monster means you haven’t actually *improved *anything.
loooooooooooooooooool
It’s not just people in the public responding to polls though, it’s pervasive. The Democrats in Congress who “support” the GND are just moving their lips, no words are coming out. What does this support entail? When asked, most all Dems turn into slippery snot and hem and haw and refuse to make a single goddamn concrete policy statement or say anything that would create a connection between themselves and the GND less tenuous than a bond of smoke and mirrors.
It’s the same song and dance with reparations. They say “I definitely am in favor of examining the issue more closely”. Which sounds good, is a seeming non rejection of the idea, and at the end of the day, doesnt really mean a goddamn thing.
The problem is that we literally do not have time for baby steps. According to the IPCC, best case scenario we only have about 12 years to make some of the greatest changes to society in human history to avert catastrophe. If you think Trump is bad, imagine the monster who will be elected when there are tens if not hundreds of millions of climate refugees worldwide fleeing devastated countries in the coming decades. Now might be the last opportunity to avoid a hundred holocausts.
I disagree with your views then.
Voters of both parties are to the left of the parties themselves on economic issues. Democratic voters are trying to move the party in a direction that makes them more appealing to voters enough to win elections and get things done.
All this talk of unity among the democratic party is usually coached in a ‘kick the liberals’ doublespeak, as if liberals are the problem. Liberals, when all is said and done, will almost all vote for the democratic candidate no matter who it is. However we’d prefer democrats that represent the will of the voters who elect them and who will actually fight for their voters.
If ~85% of democratic voters want medicare for all, then when the mainstream democratic party writes it off as a pipe dream before even trying to fight for it that is a problem.
This.
Storm’s a’comin’ and we’re all unsheltered, even the 1 percenters. We need one of the political parties to show the appropriate level of urgency. Leadership isn’t accomplished through narrow political calculation and trepidation.
Yes, politics is always the art of the possible, but I would argue that moderation is increasingly impossible, and that bold steps are the only way forward. And voters don’t seem to want the careful, minor adjustments of incrementalism. Donald J. Trump is POTUS. That didn’t happen because voters wanted slight changes to the status quo. (Yes, I know HRC won the popular vote. That’s a weak refutation of the point; Trump got enough votes in enough states to win the EC because enough people wanted a wrecking ball.)
The main point in favor of incremental change is that it’s the kind most likely to survive the administration that enacts it.
But then how do we resolve the rising conflict between the radical incrementalists and the counter-cultural Marxists?
I hope you’re backing Jay Inslee then. Climate change is not that high on my list of priorities, but I think he’s just the kind of classic upbeat politician we need, so I would be quite happy with Inslee as nominee. Of the many running, there are only two I like better than Inslee: Beto and Booker. But if you consider the climate issue that dire, then you should definitely be behind Inslee, as he clearly feels the same way and has a real urgency and determination about it that I don’t think is present with any of the others.
Almost every post in this thread talks about what the voters want or how to appeal to the voters – this is pointless unless people are allowed to vote!
Between brazen Republican removals of people from voter registration lists, increasing the difficulty of registering to vote, eliminating polling locations, and tricks at the polls like deliberate under-supply of voting machines in blue precincts (mostly in urban areas), more & more people are finding it hard to vote. Deliberate efforts are being made to discourage voting, especially in certain groups.
Hillary lost in part because anti-voting efforts in Detroit sent Michigan’s electoral votes to Trump, and similar anti-voting efforts in Milwaukee gave Wisconsin’s to Trump.
Such anti-voting efforts are still going on, and accelerating. Here in Minnesota, with the highest voter turnout in the country, Republicans in the Senate are fighting against higher security for electronic poll books, are pushing for (never-counted) provisional ballots, and more restrictions on absentee & early voting. Next door in Iowa, they are trying to make it harder for students on college campuses to vote. All this is happening now, and could make the actual 2020 Election Day counts a foregone conclusion.
What the majority of people say they want (in polls) only matters if they can actually vote!